


free as a bird now

by lipsstainedbloodred



Series: let me in verse [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, Kevin Centric, Vampire!Renee, basically a before the series with kevin as the main character, part of the let me in universe, vampire!Kevin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 03:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17890277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lipsstainedbloodred/pseuds/lipsstainedbloodred
Summary: “We found him,” She said after a while, “or, well, Matt did. In Arizona.”“What?” Kevin asked. “Who?”“Oh,” Kevin said softly.or, the prequel to let me in (to your heart) where Kevin makes a choice.





	free as a bird now

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted an excuse to write vampire Kevin in a Waffle House. Happy birthday K Day you're my best boy.

All night diners were the one thing about America that Kevin Day had always been infatuated with. The hummingbird beat of hearts, flickering of fluorescent lights, and smell of sizzling bacon, sweet pancakes, stale cigarettes and bad coffee were consistent no matter the year or place. Kevin dragged his fingers through the condensation gathering on the side of his water glass, absently drawing sigils as he looked out through the window. Something eerie with a sultry guitar played through a crackling speaker; “ _ And in the mas...bers, they gath- for the fea...ey stab it with th...ly knives, but they just ca- kill the -ast.” _

Two girls in matching yellow bell bottoms clung to each other as they passed by Kevin’s booth, behind them trailed two boys looking like something straight out of  _ Saturday Night Fever _ . “It just seemed so real,” one of the girls kept saying, shaking her head. Every one of her curls stayed stuck in place by what Kevin could only assume had been an entire can hair spray. “And the way that awful alien creature came out of that guy’s chest. What a nightmare.” She shuddered.

Her friend patted her arm as they dropped down into a corner booth, forcing the boys with them to share the seat across from them. “Now now Linda, it was just a movie.”

A fly buzzed in Kevin’s ear and he swatted at it in irritation. The condensation from his glass was creeping across the table and curling the edge of a piece of newspaper he’d set too close to it. He tried to focus his attention back on the paper. There was an obituary for a young man who’d died from exposure that his eyes kept coming back to. A politician he’d never heard of was caught cheating on his wife. Someone was going to jail for tax evasion. He turned to the sports section, fingers still tracing through water droplets absently. 

_ (It didn’t strike him until later that he had been looking for something in that paper, a name he hoped he wouldn’t find. A name he was glad he didn’t see.) _

He landed on the crossword and reached for his pen. It skittered out from under his wet fingers, landing on the floor.

“Is someone sitting here?” 

Kevin looked up. Renee Walker was a gentle looking young woman with long straight black hair and brown eyes. She looked unassuming in her long denim dress with a white button down under it. Kevin gestured at her to sit and she smiled, a small hidden little thing. He picked his pen up as she sat down and dropped it back onto the table.

“Murder.”

“What?” 

“24 across. A gathering of crows is a murder.”

“I knew that.” Kevin shoved the newspaper to the other side of the table. “Why are you here? Are you checking up on me?”

“You are not a child, Kevin,” Renee said, “even if you are very young. I have no reason to check up on you. I just happened to notice you were in town.”

“I’m only young to you.” 

Kevin looked almost ten years older than Renee, and his hard-lined face and perpetual frown did nothing to make him look any younger. Renee could pass for someone who was in her late teens or early twenties and her fashion conscious girlfriend made sure she was always suitably dressed for whatever the newest fashion craze was. Kevin, with his jeans and dark leather jacket, could have passed for her older brother. 

Renee laughed.

The waitress passed by and asked Renee if she wanted anything, which Renee politely declined. Kevin tapped his foot restlessly under the table. Overhead the speakers spat out something bright and cheery;  _ “ _ _ Well n- I get lo...get high, a- if...get either, I really-  got the win...eaven on- shoes...a dancin' man and I jus- ca- lose.” _ Kevin hummed along as best he could under his breath, looking out the window. 

Outside a Firebird was parked crooked in it’s space, taking up two spots. A beat up Chevelle was minding it’s own business under the flickering Waffle House sign, it’s bumper barely hanging on by a prayer. His own reliable Oldsmobile sat smooth and unbothered, the moonlight catching on her hood and bouncing off of it. An old truck driver passed by, lit cigarette in hand and cap pulled down low over his eyes. 

The shuffling of paper drew Kevin’s attention back to Renee. She had pulled the newspaper close to herself, fingers dancing around the May 29, 1979 in the corner. She traced the number a couple of times almost absently. “We found him,” She said after a while, “or, well, Matt did. In Arizona.”

“What?” Kevin asked. “Who?”

Renee looked up at him, unsmiling. Renee looked twenty years old, but her eyes were ancient. She did not answer him, letting him work out the answer on his own. Kevin avoided her eyes, staring at a crack in the table. Behind them the bell over the door croaked. Plates clacked in the kitchen. The rabbit beat of human hearts thumped on. 

“Oh,” Kevin said softly.

A lifetime ago Kevin Day had been a young man, born in Ireland to a single mother. When the Great Famine struck Ireland he’d only been a baby, maybe two years old. He almost didn’t survive the immigration to America, stuck in the belly of a ship with too many people. His mother, Kayleigh, said he’d been born stubborn as an ass, refusing to die when he probably should have. Kayleigh had been that stubborn too. He’d grown up in New York City, raised Irish Catholic with the help of other Irish immigrants. Kayleigh had met a Japanese immigrant named Riko Moriyama who sometimes babysat Kevin while Kayleigh was at work. 

When Kevin was a teenager Kayleigh died suddenly in the night. Kevin had been at work all night and came home to his mother deathly pale and cold in her bed. Riko had helped bury her, even paid for her funeral and casket, and the day they put her in the ground Riko told Kevin he could stay with him. 

The odd thing about Riko was that he never seemed to get any older. He’d been in his twenties when he met Kayleigh Day, and though he claimed to now be in his thirties he didn’t seem to actually look any older. Kevin didn’t try asking about it. Riko hated questions. 

He found out later, of course, when he was almost as old as Riko was supposed to be. Riko had turned Kevin into a vampire along with another man named Jean Moreau whose parents had given away as some sort of debt payment. Their coven lived underneath the Moriyama’s Evermore Compound in West Virginia, in an area of Evermore lovingly referred to as the Nest. Every few years or so Riko would leave and come back with someone new to add to his collection. People that entered the Nest were never allowed to leave it. 

The Nest was pitch black by design, though Kevin could see just fine in the dark. The layout was a confusing maze of walls and doors that seemed to interconnect. Riko liked to bring humans down sometimes and let them run through the darkness, laughing and mocking them before he let them die. Riko down in the Nest was a man Kevin had never met before; cruel were he’d once been kind, a tyrant where he’d once been a friend. He treated the ones he’d turned like his own property, abused and tortured them as he saw fit. He tattooed collars around their necks and weaved his own name across their skin like a brand.

Kevin didn’t know how time passed in the Nest. There was no day or night. Clocks were not brought in. Riko sometimes told them conflicting years. One day it was 1883, the next 1879, the next 1905. The clothing that the humans wore changed, most noticeably with the women. 

Riko called them his Ravens. Kevin and Jean and the others. He brought them another one, in what Kevin learned was 1922, named Nathaniel. Kevin liked Nathaniel. He was smart and fiery. He was dark skinned with hair like copper and his eyes were ice blue. He had scars across his chest and stomach, and when Riko had tried to tattoo him like he had all the others Nathaniel had fought back. 

Newborn vampires were unusually strong, likely due to the fact most were left to fend for themselves instead of being raised in clusters. He’d managed to dislocate Riko’s arm and jaw before Riko finally gave up. 

Riko would die before giving Nathaniel that brand.

Riko had become increasingly more chaotic over the years, until finally the deaths started appearing connected in the newspapers. A serial killer that drained their victim of blood is what the papers said. Riko was too dangerous, too unstable. If he was found out then the Moriyama estate was at stake.

Nathaniel was asked to kill Riko and he did, almost dying in the fight himself. The Moriyama’s washed their hands of the coven and were told they could leave. Some Ravens chose to stay, not knowing what else to do with themselves. Nathaniel, Jean, and Kevin left. 

Although Kevin kept in touch with Jean, through letters and short phone calls when they could he hadn’t heard from Nathaniel in years. Part of that was his own fault. He’d been almost cruel to Nathaniel right after Riko died, roiling with equal parts relief and grief. He told Nathaniel he never wanted to see him again and he hadn’t. 

Nathaniel was very good at disappearing. Kevin hadn’t been able to find him and he’d tried for years now. 

“Why Arizona?” Kevin asked incredulously. 

“I did not ask,” Renee said. 

“Is he here? Now?” 

“He is. For the moment, at least. Matt caught him trying to sneak out of a window last night.”

“Why?” 

“He does not trust us. He has been alone a very long time now Kevin.”

“I know.” 

Renee set her hand on top of Kevin’s and Kevin’s knee jerked, banging the underside of the table. “Don’t blame yourself for things you have no control over.”

“I-” Kevin chewed on his words, tasting them. “I made a mistake when I told him to leave.”

“Maybe,” Renee said, “but it was what you needed at the time. You have a chance now to fix it. You have an eternity, actually.” She smiled and squeezed his hand before letting go. 

Most people only had a lifetime to fix their mistakes. An eternity seemed too long, but it was what he had been given. 

“Okay,” Kevin took a breath, “I’ll try.”

“I’m proud of you.” When Renee smiled like that she reminded Kevin so much of his mother that his chest ached. “We will do our best to keep him around until you’re ready.” 

Kevin nodded. 

Eventually Renee left, squeezing his shoulder on her way out. Kevin left his money on the table, patting his jacket for his car keys. Outside the moon was hanging swollen and heavy in the sky. He slid behind the wheel and stared up at the stars through his windshield. The engine roared to life. 

For years Kevin had been directionless. He’d moved states and countries, aimlessly wandering with hope that he might figure out what he was meant to do with the rest of his life. He’d tried not to think about the Nest, or Nathaniel and Jean. He’d tried to escape the demons clinging to his shoulders. He had no idea if Nathaniel would want to see him, or if he could forgive him, but he was willing to take the chance. Kevin was tired of running away. There was only one direction he was willing to move now. 

Forward. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd, the other two songs used are Hotel California by the Eagles and Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees because I think I'm funny.


End file.
